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Advent Year A 2025                                                                             A Message From Rev. Aneeta Saroop

The Nearness of Christ: An Advent Reflection

Beloved in Christ, Grace and peace to you as we enter the season of Advent.

Advent is a time that calls us to wait, watch and prepare for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is a liturgical time full of holy anticipation; not only for the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, but for the Incarnation itself. God’s astonishing truth that God continues to come into the world, again and yet again, through Christ, Emmanuel, God-with-us.

Martin Luther, reminds us that the heart of our faith is the profound mystery of the promises of God: God chooses to be found in the small, the ordinary, and the humble. The Incarnation is not a grand spectacle but a quiet arrival. Luther writes that God “lays aside all majesty” to come to us in the weakness of an infant. The Creator of the universe does not stand far off, demanding our ascent, but stoops down into our humanity, meeting us in the most vulnerable of forms.

This is the scandal and beauty of Advent. We prepare for the God who slips into the world not through million dollar inflated properties but through a stable, not through power but through self-giving love. And as Luther so often insisted, Christ continues to be found where we might least expect him – in the neighbour who needs compassion, in the bread and wine of the table, or in the daily vocations through which we serve one another.

Advent teaches us to look for God not in celestial signs alone but in the nearness of Christ dwelling among and within us. Each candle we light on our Advent wreath is a reminder that God’s light shines not from a distance, but in our midst. Luther would say that Christ is “wrapped in the swaddling cloths” of the Word proclaimed, the sacraments shared and the acts of love that flow from faith. Am I talking an awful lot about Luther since my return from Wittenberg? Maybe so!

This Advent season, I invite you to make your waiting an active response to the Incarnation. Let your prayers be shaped by the knowledge that God has already drawn near. Let your acts of kindness be grounded in the truth that Christ meets us in every person we encounter. Let your hope be strengthened by the promise that God’s redeeming work is happening now, often in hidden ways, often through our hands.

One more thing about Luther (for now) – The Reformer of our theological tradition teaches us that faith is not speculation but trust. Trust that God is truly present in Jesus, and therefore truly present in our lives. So, as we journey through Advent, we do not wait for a distant God. We wait with a God who is already beside us, already working within us, already renewing creation through love.

May this Advent deepen your sense of Christ’s nearness. May you find God in the quiet, in the small, in the everyday. And may the Spirit of Life fill our congregation with courage, tenderness and joyful expectation as we welcome again the God who comes to dwell with us.

 

O Come, Emmanuel

Light our hearts with hope as we wait for your coming. Help us see you in humble places, and in our neighbour’s need. Deepen our faith as you dwell with and within us, and strengthen us in compassion, courage and joy. Make us bearers of your light in the world. In Christ we hope and pray. Amen.

 

In hope and peace,

Pastor Aneeta +

Spirit of Life Lutheran Church